


Thinking of Spencer

by stranger12



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Character Study, Drug Addiction, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 13:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3328451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranger12/pseuds/stranger12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven team members, seven reflections on Reid's struggle with addiction</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking of Spencer

How Reid’s addiction affected his teammates, and their thoughts on his struggle. Divided in seven parts.

 

* * *

 

 

Chapter 01/07: Gideon

 

Gideon had seen plenty over the years. He had seen lives destroyed by dark secrets, tears and cries that would never stop running and echoing in his nightmares, people broken by their demons – whether created by themselves or forced on them by delusional others. He had seen practically everything twisted and horrible and ugly the world had to offer, had studied it, taught about it, and discussed it. Like he heard it said, he had a profound knowledge of humanity, and it was a heavy burden indeed to carry.

 

Among his team, he knew their demons. He wasn’t supposed to profile them, he knew, but there was no way to turn it off, so he just kept it to himself. Garcia’s losses and years lost that nearly drove her down a path she would not recuperate from, Elle’s desire to prove herself and then not to break under the loss of trust in herself and her team, JJ’s sister and how that shaped the intelligent and compassionate woman she became, Hotch’s abusive past and overwhelming need to be normal and happy, Prentiss’s isolation and such loneliness it was amazing she did not break down from its weight, Morgan’s abuse and his obsession with being big, strong and protective, not in need of protecting. They were clear as day to him, and so was Reid.

 

Reid, Spencer. His pupil and protégé, the one he handpicked to train and rally behind. He had been so young, so painfully young and innocent and sweet for the horrible world he wanted to dive into. Gideon always marveled at how soft around the edges he was when they first met despite his past (mentally ill mother, absent and negligent father, abusive classmates, and the ever present weight of his intelligence versus the threat of succumbing to his family’s medical history), and how that softness slowly turned to sharp, painful and glassy edges that cut anyone that got too close.

 

He got too close, it was the way that he did things. If he wanted something, he went for it, and invaded anyone’s space, disregarded their walls and smashed anything and everything in his path until he had his answer. And he knew it made him look like an asshole, made people hate and despise and fear him, and he didn’t care. He was his job, his job was him, and he did whatever he had to continue being good, and my God, he was good.

 

Tobias Hankel, however, showed him that being good was nothing. Shit did happen, and no matter how good someone was at seeing through people, there were things one could not predict or keep from happening. Seeing Reid through Hankel’s monitors made that perfectly clear.

 

Those hours thinking and profiling did nothing to soothe his soul, and finding Reid standing in that graveyard, Hankel dead at his feet, didn’t help either. The kid had faced one demon, and Gideon had no idea what that would do to the sweet boy, such a young boy.

 

In the beginning, it seemed alright. It seemed just fine. Reid had not broken because of Hankel, he was still on his feet, smiling and working his brain to the best of his remarkable abilities. But, because Gideon was a profiler as much as he was human, he saw through it. Reid was not okay, he was not good. He was–

 

Thinking that Reid was on drugs was fairly easy. They saw it on the job often enough, among their unsubs, victims and even fellow law enforcement agents, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know some people surrendered to their allure (he always wondered at that, and as such, stayed away from any and all just in case). But Reid. Why would he–? Was it Hankel (of course it was)? Regardless of the ‘why’ though, he was using. It didn’t matter what either, just that he was, and everyone knew, or had taken the ‘no profiling the team’ rule far too seriously.

 

When they went to New Orleans, it was plain as day that Reid was not himself. If anyone could be counted on not to be rude or snappy, it was Reid, and he was, to him, incredibly so to Prentiss on the plane, and Gideon sensed some unfinished business with his old friend. Rivals were  good for the young, and he had always thought that was sorely missing in his protégé’s life. He lightly wondered if this Ethan had ever been up to Reid’s level, for Reid was above most people.

 

Then Reid ‘missed’ the plane. He never missed a flight, even when he was injured or ill, no matter what, Reid was always there. He was professional. He was on time. He was–

 

He was a drugged addict in the middle of a life crisis, meeting with an old rival who got out of the horrors of the BAU life, who had made a very different life for himself, who could show Reid that there was more than the BAU, that it was not everything. Gideon couldn’t help but think, just for a moment, if Reid was perhaps preparing himself to the possibility of his addiction being discovered and him being kicked out of the FBI. He didn’t want to consider it, so he shoved the thought out of his mind with everything he could. Reid belonged in the BAU, just like him. Just like everyone on the team.

 

After the case was closed, they had some down time, and Gideon went down to meet Reid’s fabled former rival, and discovered a tall, skinny and whip smart musician with a lazy smile. Though definitely not gifted with Reid’s remarkable mind, Gideon was pleasantly surprised by Ethan’s, and wondered how he could ever be happy being a musician if one day he aspired to catch criminals for the BAU. He bitterly wondered what was his secret.

 

Watching Reid so at ease at the bar made something stir in Gideon. He could imagine him drinking himself away, and that was a distasteful image. The boy was too sweet for that, for alcohol, for the disgrace of drunkenness, or drugs–

 

They talked, and as they flew back to Quantico, he was sure his talk with Reid had helped him, and he would soon be on the way to recovery, if that was what his protégé wanted. He knew that no one got better without truly wanting to, and he wished he had said enough, been enough to help, like he was on the job.

 

One day, he wished Reid would tell him he had managed to help him. Perhaps that would help him stop thinking of Reid’s picture  in his hands as yet another victim.

  

* * *

 

 

Chapter 02/07: Morgan

 

Morgan knew something was wrong with Pretty Boy. He didn’t want to see it, but he knew.

 

Ever since Hankel, ever since the team witnessed Reid being beaten and killed and revived, and been too damn slow to save him, he knew Reid was not the same, and who could blame him? His team had let him down, over and over, and he killed someone to save himself. Reid, like them all, was a full fledged FBI agent and had killed on the job before, but Hankel was different. Hankel had an illness, like Reid’s mother, Morgan would eventually discover. While Diana Reid’s disease made her paranoid and out of touch with reality, Tobias Hankel’s made him delusional and murderous. However, it wasn’t difficult to see that, to Reid, there were similarities.

 

After Reid stopped doing drugs, and slowly turned back to being the Pretty Boy Morgan loved to tease, he thought everything would go back to normal. Then Frank Breitkopf returned to torment Gideon, and succeeded so brilliantly that the broken man left soon after, not being able to handle being a profiler anymore. Morgan wasn’t happy about the abrupt way he left, but every time he looked at Reid for the next month or so after his departure, he knew Reid was the most affected. The way he raged at the world was all too familiar, and Morgan feared in the brief moments he allowed himself that maybe Reid was relapsed. Fortunately, it wasn’t the case.

 

As years passed, and they faced all the ugly and cruel that the world had to offer in criminals and killers, Morgan thought Reid was out of the woods, that he would never descend into the comforting arms of drugs. Ian Doyle and Emily’s secrets almost ruined that, as Reid struggled harder than all the others to cope with and accept their dear friend and colleague’s brave sacrifice.

 

Morgan lost himself in his grief and desire for revenge against Ian Doyle and neglected Reid, he knew and regretted that after Emily was revealed to still be alive. He knew that Pretty Boy had gone to JJ for emotional support, and knew the woman had gladly given it, so Morgan assumed all would be taken cared of and he could focus on finding Doyle. He didn’t have space in his angry mind to think that Reid might just start using again because the grief and pain of losing someone was too much for the genius, arguably the most sensitive member of the profiler team.

 

After Emily came back and Doyle was a literal buried issue, he thought everything would be the same. Seaver, whom he always kind of felt was a poor substitute to JJ, transferred out, and their media liaison returned, now as a profiler as well despite her previous reluctance to become one. The team was back together and all was good. It had to be good. He was happy they were back. And Reid–

 

Reid was the happiest he’d seen him since long before Emily ‘died’ when she returned, but soon enough, he was a cold and furious mess, barely looking at Emily and JJ, hardly glancing at Hotch unless needed. It made Morgan’s stomach drop heavily, for he remembered how Reid was like when he was using. Never before or since had he been that irritated to the team, so he feared that, if Emily ‘dying’ on them hadn’t been enough to push Reid over the edge of addiction again, then her ‘resurrection’ might have been. He watched him helplessly, wanting to ask, to extend a hand to the genius, but sometimes Reid would give him such an icy look he didn’t dare.

 

Watching Reid tear into JJ was extremely hard. The two were the youngest members of the BAU from day one, and had always gotten along great. Morgan even thought they were best friends, and to witness Reid turn against her in such a vicious way was heartbreaking. The kid had faced bullies, rapists, killers without blinking an eye, and with the same ferocity and ruthlessness, he called JJ ‘Jennifer’ and walked away. Walked away from their fractured friendship, and it hurt like hell.

 

After, he knew Hotch had set up the cooking lesson at Rossi’s, and when he started heating up the water for the pasta, and still Reid wouldn’t show, he worried. He worried he was in a corner somewhere, shoving money into some drug dealer’s hand and walking away with Dilaudid, then going home and–

 

But he came. Reid came in with his boyish smile, seemingly bashful under the gaze of the rest of the team, and Morgan felt like hugging him, like reassuring himself that they were friends, that they were all family, lies and disappointment and all. They were family.

 

Things went back to normal, more or less, after the lesson at Rossi’s, though it was slow and Morgan wasn’t a profiler for nothing. Reid distanced himself from JJ and Emily. When before they’d been his closest friends, now they were his friendly colleagues. If not for Henry, Morgan wondered if Reid would even have been to JJ’s home again when before he was a frequent visitor, godson or not. And Emily... No more confiding in her, no more light bickering filled with affection. Reid didn’t forgive easily, and he never forgot. He hadn’t forgiven them by any stretch, and everyone knew it, but he was a better man than Morgan could ever hope to be, and saw past his own feelings to go back to at least a working relationship, but no one could ever make him be friends with them.

 

Morgan had known Reid for many years. He’d seen the kid crawl out of Gideon’s long shadow, become a profiler of note, confronting anyone in his way, and grow into a man anyone with eyes would be honored to have by their side, whether his weapon was a gun or his mind, both as deadly as they could ever be. He’d seen him be beaten and tortured and in the shits because of addiction, and he’d seen him rise above it all. He became a man, though he was sure Reid did not see himself like that.

 

There was no doubt in Morgan’s mind that Reid was building himself back up, and he would help him however he could. That’s what family’s for, right?

 

* * *

 

 

Chapter 03/07: Prentiss

 

It hadn’t been Emily’s choice to leave her team behind.

 

As she bled to death and was barely saved, the decision was taken away from her by Hotch and JJ, and they used every advantage and pull and called every favor in order to get her to safety, to make sure she could lay low as she recovered from her vicious encounter with Doyle, until he was found and made to pay for his crimes. If he ever was, a sweet, tempting voice whispered in her ear, enticing her to return, to go after him herself, to go and–

 

She ignored that voice, and stayed put. She’d been reckless enough, she had to trust her team, and she did. They came through, and she was able to return to her old job, her old life. What she didn’t realize right away was that her old life no longer included one element – Spencer Reid’s unwavering friendship.

 

Ever since she came on board, she marveled at how sweet he was, how together he acted when the time called for it, and how he welcomed her easily enough though she was substituting a clearly beloved member of their little family. He offered her sweets and coffee and became someone she could easily rely on.

 

After the entire mess with Hankel (and how she wished she could’ve shot him, as innocent as Tobias was, his other ‘selves’ were definitely not), she closed her eyes to the fallout. She was new, no matter how friendly everyone was, and she didn’t want to make waves. More importantly, however, she didn’t want to see the cracks in Reid’s beautiful, genius, genteel veneer, as obvious as they were.

 

For her blindness, she got snap after snap from the younger man for the smallest of infractions, and she bore them all. She had a thick as hell skin, she could take whatever Reid could throw at her, as long as she didn’t have to see what he was doing, as long as she didn’t need to be the one to confront him on his addiction, as long as one day he smiled at her and handed her some coffee and asked her to accompany him to some old Russian movies marathon with his sweet, bashful smile.

 

Though she had nothing to do with it, Emily felt proud of her friend, proud that he was as strong as he was sweet, and was able to pull himself out of the throes of drugs, was capable of realizing that he was a support system ready to catch him, should he fall, and no one would judge him or abandon him. The BAU was a family, and Emily was ever so happy she had fought to get into it, because for once, she was not alone.

 

Then Doyle. Doyle, Doyle. She nearly died, hid, and miraculously returned. But Reid didn’t come around.

 

The way Reid acted after she came back reminded Emily of the way he was when he was on Dilaudid. Snappy, aloof and completely unlike himself. No eye contact, no physical contact, none of his childish, bright smiles, just a mask of cool professionalism that invited no warmth or friends. Emily saw Reid with Morgan and Rossi, and saw him pull away, saw him with Garcia, and watched as he smiled painfully and kept her at arms length. Hotch followed him with his eyes but tried not to interfere.

 

And then he finally, finally snapped. Emily didn’t know why she was so surprised that he did. Everyone had a breaking point, and JJ found Reid’s.

 

Though Reid’s words were completely directed at JJ, Emily felt them cut into her, and she wished he would come at her. She was the guilty one, she had been the cause of his pain, of the way he couldn’t seem to make himself get close to his friends anymore, the way he clearly no longer trusted JJ to have his back. She didn’t even think about the way he flat out ignored her whenever possible.

 

She tried to joke with him, about her ulcer at his reaction to her return, and it pained her that his eyes were so cold and hurt, and she had had a hand at that. She did that, she took another part of his innocence, of the part of him that adored Halloween and putting coffee in his sugar, of the only man who could reach to some Unsubs because he was that compassionate, that kind, and she helped chip away at that beautiful part of him. She wondered how much of it he had left.

 

After the cooking lesson at Rossi’s, that Emily tried very hard to enjoy despite herself, Reid sluggishly started to warm up to Emily and JJ again, but she could tell the fracture in their relationship was not fixed, and likely never would be. Reid’s trust was not easily gained, and he would probably never trust either of them as he once did, but Emily cared for him, she worried for him, and didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t trust them again, that falling into the arms of addiction again was better than friends who betrayed him.

 

When Emily finally lost the battle and left the BAU, she gave Reid a big old hug that he tried to escape, but she just held on tight, trying to convey how sorry she was for the deception that broke his heart, and how much she longed for them to be close as they once were. She wanted him to tell her if he felt any pains, about the newest books he’d read, and old movies he wanted to revisit.

 

Despite pretty much running away, Emily hoped they could be friends again one day. She hoped one day he would smile at her again.

 

* * *

 

 

Chapter 04/07: Garcia

 

Garcia could still remember the way Reid stared down the delusional Tobias Hankel in a shack in rural Georgia, she could still remember how unwavering his stare was, how he told him ‘no’ over and over, like he didn’t care about dying there, all alone and helpless and–

 

She didn’t like to think about that. Her babies were supposed to fly away and return to her in one piece, they were never supposed to be beaten, killed, or drugged–

 

During her wild years, she’d seen plenty, she’d done plenty. Her friends would never believe how down the rabbit hole she’d gone, what ugly things she’d been offered – and taken. She wasn’t an innocent, she knew how awful the world was, and still she believed in the good in it all, she believed that people were good and could overcome anything. They would survive anything and come out better and stronger and–

 

Reid was a mess after Georgia, there was no other way to put it, and Garcia loved him so, but  he was a mess. They didn’t actually spend that much time together, but they heard Morgan’s light comments on how the genius was off on the field, and it drove a dagger through Garcia’s heart. She’d seen people walk down the path of addiction, whatever that may be, and she didn’t Reid of all people– Not Reid. Not one of her babies.

 

People thought she was some bubbling dumbass with some skill in computers, but as Morgan always gently told her, her greatest strength was looking into the most depraved things humanity had to offer and still wanting to come back the next day to work. To herself, Garcia always thought her biggest strength was love. She loved wholeheartedly. And she loved Reid.

 

There was nothing she could do as Reid struggled with his addiction, and she wished she was brave enough to push him, to offer help and talk to him about the friends she’d lost to the allure of alcohol and sex and all kinds of drugs, but she knew he would not welcome any of it. As sweet as Reid could be, she wouldn’t be dealing with her Reid anymore, she’d be talking to a junkie, and junkies weren’t that receptive to her brand of sparkle and enthusiasm and positivity, in her experience. So she waited.

 

Garcia waited and waited until Reid opened up, and she pounced, hugging the life out of him and offering cookies and cupcakes and teasing him good naturedly and hoping he would come around to her, and slowly but surely, he did. His smiles at first were careful and scared, but they eventually returned to big, bright and happy, and he even shyly told her how much he loved her triple chocolate chip cookie. She thought her squeal would’ve scared him off, but he bore it patiently, even her bone crushing hug.

 

Throughout the years, Garcia worried for all of her babies. Foyet, Haley, Doyle. They shaped them in painful, cruel ways. Like all the rest, Reid was damaged, but he was the most sensitive of her babies, the young and sweet and wide eyed baby from Las Vegas who loved magic tricks, who ate her cookies to the last crumb, who took every offense when it came to the team like a personal one, who hurt in silence, his tears as painful as watching a kicked puppy.

 

And then... Maeve. The woman no one on the team ever met, but she captured Reid’s heart like no woman had come even close, and she was taken apart by one of the ones they chased day in, day out. She became another victim, someone they couldn’t save (like Elle, like Haley), and it broke something in Reid that they never even got to see. They never got to see him happy with her, like they had with Haley and Hotch, or Elle before the Fisher King. Maeve went down to always remain just over Reid’s shoulder as a ghost of what could’ve been.

 

One thing Garcia was ever so proud and happy about with Reid was that, throughout everything, even losing the woman of his dreams come to life, he remained resolute in his resolve not to fall back to Dilaudid. Even as he stayed hidden away in his apartment, trying to drown his pain and grief in the dark, he didn’t resort to drugs. Garcia knew he probably fought tooth and nail against the desire to just forget for a little bit, but he was probably rational (always her rational doc) enough to know that a dip back could easily mean a full on jump into those waters and held back.

 

She wanted to be able to tell all of her babies how much she loved them and was proud of them for their strength, how much they helped her keep going by always doing their jobs with clear heads and hearts, and for always remaining a family, through thick and thin. She wanted to hug them all and tell them it would all be okay, all the hurt they’d endured made them stronger, never weaker, and in the end, they were loved, by her, by the rest of the team, if no one else. They were loved.

 

Reid suffered through enough of her hugs over the years, but she knew that sometimes, it was better to let him be.

 

Her genius doctor baby would be alright. She would make damn sure of it.

 

* * *

 

Chapter 05/07: Rossi

 

This is it, Rossi thought. This will make Reid fall.

 

He had not been around for the shitstorm of Tobias Hankel, but he’d heard the whispers, seen the looks, read the reports. It had been a fairly straightforward case, if not for Reid. Pipe cleaner with eyes. Halloween enthusiast. Beaten and tortured and killed and revived and drugged by a delusional unsub, most of it in front of a camera for the entire BAU to watch and helplessly suffer through. Rossi was very much glad, thank you, that he wasn’t a part of that. He’d been through much, in the war, in the FBI, but nothing like what his team went through. Certainly nothing like what Reid went through, all alone in a lone cabin in the middle of fuck all nowhere.

 

When he met Reid, he thought. Tall, skinny as shit, consumed coffee and books in equal amounts (as in, not at all normal or healthy), smart as fuck – and what the hell was Rossi doing back if they had someone like him around? As he watched the kid during his first few cases back, he kept thinking about it. The rest of the team was quick, smart and all around heavy hitters when it came to profiling, for sure, but Reid’s mind alone was something extraordinary. After hearing about Hankel, and reading the reports, he revised his assertion. Reid was extraordinary.

 

As cases passed, Rossi continued to think Reid was the BAU’s biggest asset, especially because the kid was so damn loyal to the team – as were they all, really. But he was steady, cool under pressure, always good natured and humored, unlike sour Hotch, sometimes defensive Morgan, and himself, asshole Rossi. Even Emily, ever collected, and JJ, always poker faced, weren’t quite like Reid, seemingly always in control of himself when on a case, though a complete goofball out of it. Rossi came to like the kid easily enough, and how could he not? You either loved strays or you didn’t, and Rossi was a softy at heart.

 

The case that took them to Vegas, and made Reid dream of dead kids in basements, poked something in Rossi’s mind about the kid. Cool Reid, having nightmares over a case? C’mon. There had to be more to it than what seemed, and when it turned out to be some long forgotten memory involving Reid’s parents (and boy, a mentally ill mother and a coward father, and Reid was the result? He really was amazing), it made Rossi sick to his stomach. Would they have to arrest either or both? That would definitely be a blow to the kid, and he’d never seen him do agitated, ever. There was a cold fire in him that Rossi hated. The Reid he knew wasn’t like that, but then again, was the Reid anyone knew the real Reid?

 

Once it became clear that neither Diana or William Reid were guilty of murder or pedophilia, Reid calmed down like he’d been high and crashed down, hard. Rossi commented on it to Morgan, and the younger man gave him such a look Rossi thought he was gonna get slammed to the nearest wall and plummeted. He was told in no uncertain terms that he’d better keep his shitty remarks to himself, or else. Even for hotheaded Morgan, it was a very random reaction, and at the first chance, he questioned Hotch about it, and he almost regretted it when his old friend’s face turned guilty and haunted.

 

He was told about Hankel and Reid, the stuff that wasn’t in the reports. How the young agent had become addicted to the same drug the unsub forced on him, and spent months struggling with it, and not one of the so called best of the best of the FBI noticed it. They walked around ignoring his mood swings, his irritability, his out of character rudeness, too afraid to face hard truths, and Rossi wasn’t sure he would’ve been all that different. The team was a family, and it was hard to see the ugly truth about your family.

 

Hotch told him Reid had kicked his addiction and had not slipped since. Rossi felt an embarrassing amount of pride for the kid. The pipe cleaner with eyes who protected and cared for unsubs like they were the victims, who adored his godson like he was the Sun, who talked so fast when he was excited to impart some of the knowledge in that big brain of his. Reid. Damaged, broken, beaten and bullied but still standing, smiling.

 

Years passed. A lot of shit happened. Foyet. Hotch. Emily. Doyle. JJ. And then... Maeve. Reid’s mystery woman. Reid’s perfect woman. Reid’s– And then she was dead, right in front of them, of him, and Rossi thought back to his talk with Hotch and wondered if his colleague, his friend, would break now. After so much, his entire life, taking so many beatings, he’d finally give up after losing the one woman who could ever keep up with him, who could entice him to love her. Would this be Reid’s breaking point? And it almost was.

 

Rossi did consider himself Reid’s friend, but he wasn’t there with Garcia, JJ and Morgan to help him build back his home. He wasn’t there dropping off food at his door like a friendly cat, he didn’t offer a friendly shoulder to cry on. That wasn’t who he was, and he figured Reid knew that they weren’t friends like that, even if they were friends.

 

But Rossi couldn’t help the absolute burst of pride for his young (brave, beautiful, stupid, genius, selfless) friend when he saw him back to the BAU, back to work, a little worn around the edges but back to work, back where he belonged, with his family.

 

And, for it was worth, with coffee, sugar, reading and geeky stuff as his only crutches.

 

* * *

 

 

Chapter 06/07: Hotchner

 

One day, Hotch knew he would have to explain all of his sins to a higher power. One day, he would meet Haley again and he would tell her about each and every case the BAU worked on, he would speak at length about the cases that touched him, the team, the most, the ones that hurt deeper, that left scars that would never heal, that no one could ever heal. She would hold his hand and kiss his cheek and forgive him for his sins, forgive him for not being able to save so many people, and for being such a lousy leader that his team got hurt on his watch.

 

Reid. He always thought about that night in Georgia, how much it hurt for a millisecond when the young man named him ‘to die’. Then he heard his explanation, and he nearly smiled. It was so sneaky, so Reid. His brilliant mind stunned him as usual, how he outsmarted his captor and sent his team a message. The damage, Hotch would soon discover, had already been done, and brilliance or not, Reid was the one who saved himself.

 

Hotch wasn’t the BAU team leader for nothing, of course, he saw almost as deep as Gideon and Rossi and Ryan had. He had the training, he had the smarts, he had the insight. None of it mattered, however, when it came to matters of the heart. Just like he didn’t want to see how unhappy Haley got as time passed and even after having Jack, his work demanded just as much if not more of his time, he also didn’t want to see that Reid was wasting away under the spell of the same drug that Tobias Hankel used to escape his abusive father.

 

He wanted to reach out to Reid, it was his job, but– Gideon was his mentor, the others were his friends, and Hotch was his boss. As talented a group of profilers as they were, none of them wanted to be the first one to say something, to step up and utter the words. Reid had a drug problem. Reid was a drug addict. Reid was drowning.

 

The New Orleans case was one that changed many lives, but the ones that stayed in his mind more acutely were JJ with the charming Detective LaMontague and Reid and his friend/rival who dropped out from the FBI academy. Gideon was the only one who met him, and confided in Hotch later, over a drink in the former’s office, that this Ethan character was kind of like Reid in many ways (both tall, thing and good looking), but it seemed he had had enough of self evaluation to realize he didn’t want to be an FBI agent, a profiler, he didn’t want to be as haunted as they all were. Reid, however, had been too enchanted, and even if a little voice told him not to, he went into the academy, and his life was set from then on.

 

If Reid hadn’t entered the academy, he would be leading  happy life, never knowing what the feel of a needle in his arm, full of Dilaudid, felt like. He wouldn’t know what being high meant outside of medical books. He wouldn’t know the thrill of saving a life, of standing in front of an armed teenager and allowing him to say his goodbyes to the girl he loved, of facing a delusional and suicidal man bent on blowing up himself and everyone around him and making him have a semblance of closure in his final moments. Reid wouldn’t be Reid if he hadn’t joined the FBI, and Hotch knew it. He wished he didn’t.

 

Thankfully, Reid pulled out of his addiction and even remained in the program best as he could while working the BAU’s back breaking (leg breaking), soul crushing hours, and as far as Hotch knew (and he watched the young man closely, intent on not being so blind about him again), he’d never slipped. He was a stubborn man, Hotch knew, and was glad he was able to divert it to something so positive and important as his sobriety.

 

Hotch wished he could go up to Reid and let him know how much he admired him, what a remarkable young man he was, what a wonderful person he was. He’d faced down death numerous times, had come face to face with the worst monsters humanity had produced in the last few decades, and he’d never backed down. He’d talked down a brutal, vicious serial killer even as Hotch lost his cool and almost wrestled him to death, and made said killer lose all anger and instead reflect on his life, because he realized Reid could be right in his observations on his life, and he was right. Hotch heard every word, and agreed with all of them, but he didn’t think he knew another person, another profiler, who could’ve delivered such a hard, matter–of–a–fact profile to its very subject while keeping complete cool and making the subject just as calm.

 

Reid. Former twelve year old prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school who could smile in face of any tragedy and monster, who came face to face with a tormentor he couldn’t talk down, whom he couldn’t outsmart, and he did the only thing he could – he faced him head on. He endured torture, he looked down the barrel of a gun and didn’t flinch even as Hankel pulled the trigger. Reid faced death, and he came out of it shaking and addicted to the one thing Hankel (the real him) gave him to lessen his pain. Hotch couldn’t blame him for continuing using it as he dealt with the aftermath of his time under Raphael and Charlie Hankel’s delicate treatment.

 

One day, Hotch would (hoped he would) meet Haley again, and on that day, he hoped she wouldn’t mind hearing about the rest of his family outside of Jack. His friends, mentors, colleagues, sons and daughters and fathers and brothers and sisters, all rolled up in one. He would especially tell her about the young man who charmed the few children who looked past his nervous babble, and was a child himself. A child who slipped a little but who remained strong through it all. A child that Hotch loved and hoped to see as happy as he pretended to be.

 

* * *

 

 

Chapter 07/07: Jareau

 

JJ knew she had hurt Reid. She was (had been) the closest to him since he started, always supporting him, loving him like a little brother. Their odd date had been almost painfully platonic, but the genius had surprised her by acting like it from the get go, awkwardly going through it only because she loved football. His smile had been wide, bright and innocent, and she tried hard to remember it in the next years when his face turned dark in a moment and he spent long periods only giving a fake, uncomfortable smile.

 

For ten weeks he had gone to her house and cried on her shoulder desperately, clinging to her like she might just disappear, like Elle, like Gideon, like Emily. Will stood in the background with Henry, the little boy, when he was awake, trying to pry his godfather away from his mother, trying to make him as happy as Reid always made him. For a few minutes, Reid would lighten up and play with the little boy, but then he would go home and JJ knew his dark thoughts were back on his mind at full force.

 

Emily’s ‘death’ had been necessary. After such a long time with the FBI and a short stint at the Pentagon, JJ learned that lies were needed in the work she did, especially because they were often meant to protect the innocent, and she did not regret teaming up with Hotch to lie and break the hearts of their colleagues and friends and just family, and didn’t think she ever would. Emily ‘dying’ saved her. On the other hand, it fractured the entire team, and where she was concerned, it deeply damaged her relationship with Reid. Spence.

 

When Emily finally returned, JJ thought everything was going to be fine. She was back, although not in her preferred capacity, and her family was complete once again. Everyone seemed fairly okay with the lies, and Reid’s smile when he was around Emily was brilliant. Of course, JJ had naively believed her friends to be easy to forgive and forget. She was very wrong.

 

Reid was like a child, they all knew, lashing out whenever annoyed, and Emily’s ‘death’ wasn’t just an unwelcomed poke in the belly, it was a downright kick out the bed. JJ darkly remembered his Dilaudid days, when his eyes were never steady, and his personality seemed to shift every moment he turned. He managed to kick it, not easily but he did, and all seemed alright again. Then she agreed to lie to him, to his face, and continue on for months.

 

At first, she thought it would pass, that it was his childish way of dealing with the realization that those he loved and loved him could lie so easily he could not see it. She even dared call him a child, or as good as, to his face, that he shouldn’t lash out just because he was angry she had managed to dodge his exceptional profiling skills. That was a huge mistake.

 

He eviscerated her.

 

Like the others, JJ knew Reid was a genius. It was a plain as anything fact, but like the rest of the team, she often ignored or forgot about it when it came to personal matters because he was so clumsy around girls, even them at times, always so innocent and kind. They forgot he was a Las Vegas public school prodigy, as he once told Hotch, that had raised himself and cared for his ailing mother after his cowardly father left them with no support. They ignored the fact that, as sweet as he was personally, he could be vicious and cutthroat on the job. Rossi told them how he gutted the pedophiliac father of Samantha Malcolm, and boy was Rossi impressed. The entire team knew what he was capable of to get his point across, and she forgot about it when she confronted him.

 

His words cut her, and mostly because they were neither exaggerations or lies. He had gone to her literally crying for exactly ten weeks because he loved her, trusted her, believed in her, and her lies, although necessary, had hurt him much more than she ever thought possible. Of course, the worst was yet to come. Over his shoulder, she could see the rest of the team cringing and widening their eyes when Reid, Spence, said he thought about taking Dilaudid again, and would she have let him, to ease the pain of Emily’s ‘death’?

 

Tobias Hankel and Dilaudid were dirty words at the BAU. Reid rarely uttered them, and he had definitely never spoken so offhandedly about his addiction. He had especially never mentioned he ever thought about using again after he quit. JJ felt the knife in her heart twist, and the last blow was him calling her ‘Jennifer’. He never called her that, from day one. When he walked away, she tried to pull herself together, although it took a herculean effort.

 

How could he have even thought about Dilaudid again? It didn’t make any sense. He was stronger than that. He had survived so much, and he had thought about slipping because Emily died? Her Spence wasn’t so week, he was a survivor in all senses of the word. He was–

 

He was left yet again by someone he came to care for, came to love. And, unlike William Reid, Elle, Gideon, Emily left no note behind, she left with no explanation or closure, and sweet, sensitive Reid felt it all the deeper that there would never be an end. They could catch her killer, but what good would that do? She would still be dead and he would still feel the loss of a dear friend.

 

JJ wondered what would have happened had they never caught up to Ian Doyle, had Emily been forced to stay years hidden, not mere months. Would the team have been able to move on? Maybe. Would Reid? Would the call to his addiction be too loud for him to resist? Would they have noticed, have been able to help? Would he have allowed it?

 

None of her questions had answers, and she was scared of them. To have Spence tell her that he thought about going back to Dilaudid was painful, for sure, but if she ever knew that he would have gone back to it because she lied to him was too much for her, and she closed that door down with everything she had. Just another dark door she closed inside of her heart, like all the cases she turned down. All the faces and lives lost in time because she had a job to do, and she did it all too well.

 

All she could hope for was that Spence would eventually forgive her. That he would understand with his mind and not his heart, and would allow her back as his friend.

 

And maybe, just maybe, he would reassure her that, while he thought about it, he would never have been driven back to drugs because of her so she could sleep a little better at night.

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the overall style of each part, though God damn, Garcia’s part was hard as fuck.
> 
> JJ’s, though last in my random order, was the first one I wrote, and then I wrote Gideon’s and from then on it was really all over the place.
> 
> (I particularly liked JJ, Rossi and Gideon’s parts the best)
> 
> (I didn't plan on the number of words, but it's nice when things work out)


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